{"id":890,"date":"2015-06-16T10:38:16","date_gmt":"2015-06-16T14:38:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.bard.edu\/mba\/?p=890"},"modified":"2015-06-17T10:50:31","modified_gmt":"2015-06-17T14:50:31","slug":"want-a-sustainable-future-educate-for-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bard.edu\/mba\/2015\/06\/16\/want-a-sustainable-future-educate-for-it\/","title":{"rendered":"Want a Sustainable Future? Educate for it!"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jaimie Cloud, Founder of the Cloud Institute<\/a> for Sustainability Education, with other education reformers, is looking to change K-12 education to create citizens ready for the challenges of the 21st century and beyond.\u00a0 She has built principles and curricula supporting Education for Sustainability. The list of school districts that she has helped transform are on the Cloud Institute website’s client list<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Education for Sustainability<\/strong> stands in contrast to Educating about Unsustainability<\/strong>: the depressing story of how much is wrong with the world and how horrible we are as humans for destroying the planet and each other.\u00a0 While many feel that \u201cfear, doubt and uncertainty\u201d is an effective way to wake people up, Cloud believes that it has the opposite effect on the psyche.\u00a0 The brain shuts down when it perceives a threat and stops participating, leaving the body to fight or flight.\u00a0 A disengaged brain is not effective if you\u2019re trying to change mindsets. Jaimie tells a story about her preschool daughter coming home sad that \u201cair pollution is bad.\u201d\u00a0 She didn\u2019t fully understand why or even what air was but while she knew that bad stuff was out there, she didn\u2019t know what she was supposed to do about it. What a burden for a 3 year old!<\/p>\n

Educating about Sustainability<\/strong> presents a hopeful view of a new future: good food, community, living within planetary boundaries, meaningful work, and joy.\u00a0 Jamie feels, however, that prior efforts at this lacked the competencies for building this wonderful future. She has set out to remedy that.<\/p>\n

Educating for Sustainability<\/strong> (EfS) is based on the belief that we must create new neural connections. \u00a0Cloud suggests \u201can alternative to the air pollution story teaching children about the reciprocation of plants and humans: \u00a0humans breathe out CO2 which plants use to create food and give out O2 that humans can breathe in to support life.\u201d\u00a0 What student wouldn\u2019t appreciate plants after that type of lesson? Of course this is a very simplistic view of the CO2 problem, as it relates to climate change, but it\u2019s a foundation level appropriate for pre-school that can then support advanced learning in planetary systems as a child progresses through school.<\/p>\n

Cloud\u2019s journey toward EfS begins in Evanston, Illinois, as a student in one of the first Global Education<\/a> schools.\u00a0 It was 1968, the Vietnam era. The world was in turmoil, and schools were not immune. Global Education was created by professors at various universities with schools of education who came to believe that U.S. schools didn\u2019t prepare their students for the complexity, diversity and uncertainty of the world around them. They came together to create curricula to ready students for the 21st century, which was still 30 years away.<\/p>\n

Students, even as early as 6th grade, began to track data about the planet: the loss of languages and biodiversity, the changes to the atmosphere.\u00a0 The data they collected showed that many aspects about our planet were in decline. Cloud felt like \u201cthe boy in the story of the Emperor\u2019s New Clothes.\u00a0 Didn\u2019t anybody else see the problem?\u201d<\/p>\n

In 1987 with the Brundtland \u201cOur Common Future\u201d report<\/a> that there was a name for this: unsustainable.\u00a0 The 1992 Rio Summit then created Agenda 21<\/a>, a roadmap for sustainability. \u00a0Within this was Chapter 36<\/a> delineating the first set of competencies needed to educate young people for the future.\u00a0 Using her early schooling and the UN\u2019s new competencies, Cloud began collecting and collating curricula for Educating for Sustainability from around the globe: working with NGOs, University Centers, Ministers of Education, local schools.<\/p>\n

Today, there is more pressure for schools to reinvent their curriculum through the lens of sustainability. \u00a0The Center for Green Schools<\/a> from the United States Green Building Council (USGBC) has a goal that every school becomes a green school in this generation. The U.S. Department of Education has set 3 pillars to define a Green School<\/a>: 1) health of occupants, 2) green building and 3) curriculum and instruction.\u00a0 The first two pillars have more data and better defined standards. The third pillar is less defined and caught in the trap many feel that that EfS, Educating about Sustainability and Education about Unsustainable are equivalent. Outcomes of these different pedagogies need field analysis.<\/p>\n

A three issue series in the Journal of Sustainability Education<\/a>, seeking to bring the field together in a coherent manner, is being guest edited by Cloud.\u00a0 The first was issued<\/a> in late 2014. The theme is an invitation to scholars and thought leaders to weigh in on the essentials. A matrix of their work was created that spanned nine competency categories. The second issue, currently being edited, is a meta-analysis of the information received using grounded theory methodology<\/a> to create benchmarks and measure impact. \u00a0The third issue will call for exemplars based on the nine competencies matrix and the meta-analysis.<\/p>\n

What Cloud is doing is somewhat risky. Even Cloud Institute\u2019s framework could need to change based on the creation of the new pillars. \u201cBut it\u2019s worth the risk so that there can be a meshed framework\u201d, says Cloud.\u00a0 She believes that \u201cone big area that needs to be included as a standard now as a result of our consensus process is the epistemology of thought: cognitive frameworks or \u2018thinking about thinking.\u2019 \u201d. It is difficult to shift mental models if you can\u2019t recognize them or have language to describe them.<\/p>\n

With all this is exciting work, there is still frustration.\u00a0 Many sectors\u2014government, business, energy, food, design\u2014are addressing global un-sustainability, but to date, K-12 education has not been invited to the discussion table. There is little investment from the corporate or philanthropic worlds. Cloud has three ideas for why this is the case:<\/p>\n

1)\u00a0\u00a0 Education, for good reason, is not considered innovative. For many, school was the least creative experience of their lives and they\u2019ve had to unlearn mental models that keep them from building a sustainable world. To transform society we need to transform education. This is a daunting task.<\/p>\n

2)\u00a0\u00a0 Investment in education is considered a 20-year payback and there aren\u2019t 20 years to make the shift. \u201cThis is a classic misunderstanding of the power of youth leadership,\u201d says Cloud. Young people are not afraid of innovation and their minds are creative, as long as they are given permission to use them. Adults who will not change their mindset for their own sake will break through mental brick walls for their children. See organizations like Teens Turning Green<\/a> or Two Angry Moms<\/a>.<\/p>\n

3)\u00a0\u00a0 On the school side, branding as \u201cEducation for Sustainability\u201d sounds like there is an agenda.\u00a0 However, once educators see the curricula and programming they realize it is a curriculum based in meta-cognition, science, math, humanities and everything that goes into a good education.<\/p>\n

The biggest barrier is understanding what EfS is all about. The EfS standards complement and can help make come alive the non-negotiable standards being imposed on school districts.<\/p>\n

Some of the most enthusiastic supporters are underserved communities. The whole idea of sustainability is built around a positive reinforcing loop of justice, community health, and elimination of poverty. For teachers, it\u2019s not just another set of standards they need to meet; teachers are remembering why they became educators.<\/p>\n

I can\u2019t help but be excited every time I talk to Jaimie. It is \u201cjoyful work\u201d for her.<\/p>\n

How can we all help her bring the vision of EfS to life? As a parent, you can encourage your local schools to engage in the EfS revolution. As an educator, build the competencies into your curriculum.\u00a0 As a sustainability leader, bring educators to the table. As a citizen, support and advocate for systems that make a difference.<\/p>\n

Originally published on Fairy Ninjas<\/a>, Christine Kennedy\u2019s personal blog. Christine is a scientist and engineer who sparks connections between people and ideas. She has experience with product development and sustainability impact metrics. Her objective is to make science accessible and relevant to a diverse population driving better social, economic and environmental solutions. She completed her\u00a0Bard MBA in Sustainability<\/a> in May 2015. You can follow her @CKennedySTEM<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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